What percentage of all homicides per year in America goes unsolved?

What percentage of all felonies per year in America goes unsolved?

What is the estimated percentage of individuals wrongly convicted for
crimes in America?

What is the percentage chance one will be involved in a felony (either
as a victim or as the accused) in America today?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 13 Oct 2004 16:30 PDT

Hello karl1800-ga,

I can get you statistics that are on target or pretty close for some
-- but not all -- of your categories.

I've found data on:

--the number of crimes in the US per year (by major categories, such
as homicides, felonies, violent crimes, property crimes, etc).

--the number of crimes per person or per household in the US, for
crimes overall, as well as by type of crime

--the disposition of the crimes according to police action:  e.g. no
action taken, vs questioning suspects, vs arrest made, etc.

--statistics on the number of people sent to prison each year for
various types of crimes

--the conviction rates for various criminal charges (e.g. percentage
of people chargeed with a crime who are actually convicted.


These data can be used to make reasonable assumptions about the
numbers of crimes where the case is closed, vs the numbers that are
not closed (that is, "solved" vs "unsolved", although this is not the
language used by the justice system).

They can also shed a lot of detail of the odds that one will be
involved in a crime in some fashion, either as perpetrator or victim.


However, the data DO NOT have much to say about the number of people
wrongly convicted -- I have not found any concrete estimates on this
topic.


Let me know if I should post this information as an answer to your question.

Thanks.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by karl1800-ga on 14 Oct 2004 05:04 PDT

Hi pafalafa-ga,

I recall having read private studies that place the number of unsolved
homicides in America at 33 percent.  If the Justice Bureau of
Statistics cannot provide this answer (and perhaps they omit this on
purpose!), please look for private studies that confirm this
percentage.  In all cases, I need a hard reference source to support
my research claims.

Similarly, I remember reading that private and Justice Department
estimates place the percentage of wrongly convicted at 10 percent. 
Again, I am looking for a reference source to confirm this.  You may
want to check criminal justice studies performed by criminal justice
or law schools.

I want to say, " X percent of all homicides in America go unsolved;"
"X percentage of individuals convicted of crimes are wrongly
convicted;" "Americans have a X percent chance of being involved in a
felony sometime over their lifetime."

I only need the above three percentages--no other facts, and I need a
good source on each percentage.  I found the Justice Bureau's
statistics interesting, but difficult to manipulate to answer my
specific concerns.  Therefore, I thought you might be better at
finding other sources that specifically answer my three unknown
percentages.

Again, I am pretty certain that the percentage of unsolved homicides
in America is around 33--probably higher in big cities/lower in the
suburbs; that the percentage of wrongly convicted is 10--that includes
criminals who are part of a crime, but wrongly, excessively convicted;
and the chance one is involved in a felony over one's lifetime
somewhere around 30 percent.  But I did not save these sources and
need to find good references for them for my study.

Many thanks for your insight and help...

karl